FA's judgment opens up a Pandora's box

SIDELINE CUT:Evra's decision to go public means that the thousands of muttered, multilingual conversations that go on during the season leave players open to accusation and counter accusation, writes KEITH DUGGAN

MANY QUESTIONS emerged from the Luis Suarez-Patrice Evra affair, not least this: how do Alex Ferguson and Kenny Dalglish, both of whom are prize members of the Glenfiddich rare collection of Scotch accents, ever make themselves understood in their multinational dressingrooms?

The Football Association and Luis Suarez: Reasons of the Regulatory Commission is not the raciest title for a publication but, from the beginning, it is gripping in its examination of the brief, heated exchange which culminated with Suarez’s ban for racially abusing Patrice Evra during the match between Manchester United and Liverpool on October 15th.

Even the first few pages confirm what all sports fans know to be true anyway: you never really know what is going on in the game. Even if you have the best seat in the house, there is the game that you are watching and then there is the game that is taking place in the minds of the players and the collective minds of the teams involved.

So it was that a verbal skirmish after a humdrum corner kick in an autumn league match has led the hefty production of a 115-page report, a €48,000 fine for the Uruguayan, eight matches for which Kenny Dalglish must plan without the services of Suarez and the generally uneasy feeling created by the whole affair.

The first thing that jumps out is legal formality mingling with the spit and mud of a Lancashire derby. “Mr Evra and Mr Suarez are agreed that they spoke to one another in Spanish in the goalmouth” sounds like the beginning of a wonderfully promising cultural moment during the big match.

However, it would be about the only thing that the pair would agree on and the quick-fire exchange which followed – revolving around Suarez’s use of the word ‘negro’ and its connotations in Europe and South America – would form the basis of the case against him.

That Evra was left genuinely upset and outraged after his showdown with Suarez is indisputable. He was perturbed for the remainder of the match, went straight to Alex Ferguson after the final whistle and reported, “boss, Suarez called me a nigger” and was in an agitated state when he gave an interview to the French television channel Canal, where he claimed that Suarez’s comments were designed to provoke him.

“It still hurts. If it’s by the fans, I won’t say its fine because it’s still a shame but when it is a player playing the same game as you it’s even harder to accept. Especially when I think that he has played with team-mates who were my colour.”

Evra’s belief that there was racial intent in Suarez’s remarks comes through very clearly.

But the confusion over what exactly was said and the fact that none of the other players heard clearly what precisely was said – even those in the nearby vicinity were unaware of the exchange – leaves it possible to see the exchange from Suarez’s perspective as well.

Paragraph 162 of the report delves into the daily uses of the phrase ‘negro’ in Latin America and makes it plain that it can be a term of affection or of degradation, depending on the context of the situation. Suarez’s claims that his intentions during the exchange were mainly conciliatory are undermined by his admission that he said, “No hablo con los Negros”. The connotation of ‘negros’ here is immaterial: the fact that he declared that he didn’t speak to people of Evra’s skin colour is the crucial aspect. But the clipped language of the report cannot fully disguise the almost impossible messiness of the situation.

Like all sports confrontations, memories are blurry of who said exactly what and when.

There are several ill-advised interventions from a Mr Kuyt, although Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard is afforded no Mr in the narrative (is it because he is a Scouser?) as the report, in precise details, follows the row through the reminder of the match and into the dressingrooms where both Mr Dalglish and Mr Ferguson end up in discussions with the referee about the incident.

If nothing else, the affair throws light on the demands of basic communication difficulties faced by football managers whose stars come from various corners of the world.

For a time, the corridors of Anfield sounded like a foreign language school, with Kenny Dalglish explaining to the commission that his fluency was limited to ‘restaurant Spanish’.

The idea of King Kenny discussing the finer points of paella on a balmy Marbella night never comes up for debate on Match of the Day and yet here it is, smack in the middle of an English Football Association legal report.

In finding Suarez guilty of using “insulting words” towards Evra, the commission essentially had to believe the French man’s testimony rather than the Uruguayan’s. In paragraph five of the summary, the reasons for this are laid out. The finding was that the evidence of Suarez was “unreliable” and “unsustainable and quite incredible”.

There is something about those words which don’t sit well: they stop just short of insinuating that Suarez was slippery under cross-examination. Decades ago, Frank Richards wrote Billy Bunter and the Man from South America during his classic series about the Greyfriars hero that presented the foreigner in just those terms: shady, dodgy, not to be trusted. The bottom line is that the commission decided they could not trust the word of Luis Suarez and it is yet to be pointed out that that punishment will live long after the match ban has passed. (The monetary fine is hardly of much consequence.)

It leaves relations between Manchester United and Liverpool particularly delicate given that Suarez’s return coincides with the date of their next match. Evra was vindicated but he had to go through the turmoil of the hearing and has attracted as much negative comment as support for his stance; it can’t have been an easy time for him.

And, ironically, by exposing himself as he has done, the Frenchman now becomes an easy target for the terraces.

And Evra’s decision to go public means that the thousands of muttered, multilingual conversations that go on during the season leave players open to accusation and counter accusation. There is no doubt that Evra should not have to accept racially motivated insults. There is also no doubt that players in all sport say cheap and nasty things just to get under the skin of their opponents.

English football has laboured long and hard to rid its terraces of the nakedly racist mobs and to transform its game into a product that commands a television audience around the world. The Suarez-Evra flare-up is yet another hint of the tensions that remain on the field when football players from different countries clash with one another leading to exchanges that remain unseen even though they take place in front of an audience of millions.

The last paragraph of the report reads: “We conclude these reasons with the following comment. The charge against Mr Suarez was that he used insulting words which included a reference to Mr Evra’s colour. We have found that charge proved on the evidence and arguments put before us. The FA made clear that it did not contend that Mr Suarez acted as he did because he is a racist. Mr Evra said in his evidence that he did not think Mr Suarez is a racist. Mr Suarez said in evidence that he will not use the word “negro” on a football pitch in England in the future, and we believe that is his genuine and firm intention.”

You can bet Suarez will keep his lips firmly sealed after this. But that won’t stop the conversations that we never hear from taking place all around him.